2016 New Orleans Bowl final score: Southern Miss hangs on to beat UL-Lafayette

Southern Miss capped its 2016 season by beating Louisiana-Lafayette in the New Orleans Bowl at the Superdome, 28-21, on Saturday and into early Sunday morning. The Golden Eagles finished the year 7-6 and the Ragin’ Cajuns, 6-7.

Southern Miss seized control of the game early on, then gave it up, and then took it back, then won in a pinch. The Eagles grabbed a 14-0 lead less than eight minutes into the game, with back-to-back scoring drives that took a combined six plays and just more than two minutes of clock time. They let UL-Lafayette draw even by about the midway mark of the second quarter, though, and had to claw back ahead.

That’s just what Southern Miss did. A Nick Mullens 5-yard touchdown pass to Allenzae Staggers restored USM to a seven-point lead in the third quarter, right out of halftime. An Ito Smith touchdown run from a yard out made the advantage 14 again early in the fourth quarter. Should be easy from there, right?

It wasn’t. Mullens threw an interception about midway through the fourth, and ULL turned it into a touchdown drive. So it was 28-21. Then UL-Lafayette’s defense got a stop, so the Cajuns got the ball back with a chance to complete a second 14-point comeback. The clock read 2:02 at this point, and quarterback Anthony Jennings led the Cajuns onto the field with a shot to tie.

UL-Lafayette mangled the last drive pretty badly, though. The Cajuns let time run off the clock when they didn’t need to, ran three times in a row at one point, gave up a sack, and weren’t economical with the clock they had left. The game ended on a fourth-and-7 conversion failure, with Jennings throwing over a receiver’s head with 12 seconds left. It was not a clean attempt at scoring a touchdown.

The Ragin’ Cajuns, of course, had been here before. When Mark Hudspeth took the team to 8-4 regular seasons each year from 2011 to 2014, the Cajuns went to this exact bowl game every time. And they won them, too, helping to raise attendance and establish this as a bowl game with distinct local flavor. Their 6-6 mark this regular season was a step behind those years, but a lot better than last season’s 4-8.

Southern Miss fell off this year from its 9-5 mark under Todd Monken last year, but the Golden Eagles put up a respectable showing to get back to a bowl under first-year coach Jay Hopson. The program had to scramble a bit last January when Monken left on short notice for a job in the NFL. The ensuing season could have gone way worse, and now the Eagles have found a strong way to end it.